Mesh networks are often implemented in situations involving rapid growth or shifting demand patterns, as these networks offer greater flexibility than other network topologies such as ring networks. Communications networks, whether ring, mesh, or other topologies, can suffer from failures, or service degradations, that affect the flow of traffic from source to destination nodes. In order to mitigate tangible losses arising from these failures and degradations, protection schemes in the form of protection paths, or restoration routes, should be arranged before a failure occurs. These protection schemes provide an alternative means, usually involving physically diverse paths and equipment, for transporting traffic between an origin and destination (O-D) node pair. Mesh networks, in contrast to ring networks, have restoration routes that are much more adaptive and hence are more capable of exploiting spare capacity in the network. However, due to the complexity of a typical mesh network it is difficult to determine the set of restoration routes, for each source and destination node pair, that makes efficient use of spare capacity. Additionally, keeping restoration routes as short as possible is important for signal quality reasons, especially in optical networks.
Therefore, a method of providing restoration routes, in a mesh network, that efficiently exploits spare network capacity and keeps the restoration routes as short as possible is desired.